To the Beach & Virology

We took Liam and Mollie to the county park today and after about a 10 minute walk through some nice woods you hit a big Puget Sound beach. The tide was very low. Mollie enjoyed racing around and swimming, and Liam enjoyed watching her and practicing with the ubiquitous "chucker." We are challenged by the fact that he so likes to throw things, and has been so encouraged to throw tennis balls for Mollie, that he throws everything, all the time. Sippy cup onto the floor, heavy toys at Mommy and Daddy or whoever is nearby, anything he can reach at Mollie, and last week in the pediatrician's office the toy trains at the other children. Great---I love being "that mother," the one with the out of control kid. We're trying to figure out a way to help him differentiate, but haven't come up with anything too brilliant yet. Luckily there are plenty of opportunities to throw stuff "legally" at the beach, so it was a big hit. Sorry the photos are crummy; I need to work on my photography.

Will's virology came back and his EBV count was negative and the CMV count was 400 (very low for him), so that's good news. (Both Will's cancers, like most (or all? I can't remember) PTLDs were EBV related.) He has his every 3 or 4 months follow-up cancer screening (to confirm he's still in remission) on Monday, so please send your good intentions his way. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about it since he's been able to maintain or even gain weight, fevers when they happen are mostly low, and the virology numbers are good; but Will usually gets sort of worked up and worried. (And, who can blame him -- I'll have to post sometime about the whole living with chronic illness, cancer survivor syndrome thing where every headache tends to be evaluated as a possible brain tumor and every fever might be lymphoma. . ..)